Retromorphs: Animorphs #17: The Underground

So I read about the first half of Animorphs as a kid. Many I remember, many I just vaguely do. I remember this one. Mainly because I remember powering through it with a pretty bad headache. And that it's a plot, spoiler warning early I guess, about oatmeal. So, in other words, welcome to another Rachel book that's sorta filler. But does that mean a bad book? We'll see with The Underground.

The book opens with Marco and Rachel trying to convince Jake that they should crash the opening of Planet Hollywood to help Ax "learn about human culture". Remember how I said the last book felt dated? Yeah that feeling's not going away any time soon. All the celebs will be there, like Bruce Willis, Lucy Lawless, Ralph Lauren, Shaq. And even though this is probably the most frivolous thing the kids have done with their morphs so far, Jake decides they'll do it. As they watch the event in bird form, Rachel notices a man in a nearby skyscraper jumping out of a window high above. The Animorphs manage to catch him in time and send him to the water below. Rachel then morphs dolphin to save the man who is now drowning, but Arnold Schwarzenegger saves him in time. Figures, the Animorphs' glory swept away from them by the freakin' Terminator. But hey, they stopped a suicide at least. Guess that it wasn't as frivolous as they thought. 

But there's another issue at play. The man, George Edelman, did see a bunch of birds acting strange, so this could be a concern if he blows their cover to the Yeerks. And this gets confirmed the next day as Rachel's mom tells her that she's Edelman's lawyer who keeps mentioning that he has something in his head called a York or something. In a logical world they'd, I dunno, try to X-ray him and see the Yeerk inside, thereby at least confirming it, but this is not a world of logic so instead they threw him in a mental institution. So yeah, the Animorphs may have blown their cover by wanting to see Shaq at a restaurant. The Animorphs check out the mental institution while making a whole lot of jokes about nuts, because it's a nuthouse you see. They need to get in, talk with Edelman and get out without hurting anyone. So Jake, Rachel and Marco morph seagull to get into the food truck going into the building. While in the truck they morph cockroach and learn the truck is shipping bananas. Bananas, nuts, we get it Katherine. However, they're not alone as a tarantula made it in with the shipment. 

The three try to avoid the far faster tarantula as the shipment makes it into the kitchen. Fortunately Tobias shows up and scoops away the tarantula, not before Rachel loses a leg. Because it wouldn't be a bug morph without it scarring these kids for life. They finds the room that Edelman is staying in and Rachel demorphs. She asks him why he jumped, to which he says that he can't live with the Yeerk in his head anymore. It's been going crazy without the Kandrona of the Yeerk pool. Rachel asks how a Yeerk can even survive without its need for Kandrona, to which Edelman says that there is a concoction that can keep the Yeerk alive without Kandrona, but its effects cause them to lose their sanity. And that's maple and ginger instant oatmeal. Yep, like some aliens with water and human disease, even the Yeerks have a really kind of lame weakness. But now the Animorphs know that they may have their ace in the hole and it's part of a complete breakfast.

However, Tobias and Ax have concerns. Mainly in that this is like giving a drug to the Yeerks, and even Ax having concern that this could affect the human hosts somehow as well. And that doing something like this could be sinking to the level of the Yeerks themselves. See, it's not just Cassie who is the most concerned one all the time. Jake realizes the seriousness of it as he'd worry that Tom would be one of the humans to have similar mental breakdowns like Edelman were his yeerk affected. But he knows that this is a war, and rarely does a war end on compromise, so drugging Yeerks or stooping to their level or no, this is what they have to do. So they have to infiltrate the Yeerk pool. Rachel isn't too fond of that idea since she still has nightmares of witnessing the pools in action. The Yeerks leaving the human host, swimming in the lead-like liquid, and going back in the host's brain. But, fears or no, she's going to have to suck it up. 

Tobias shows up the next day and reveals that he knows a way to get into the Yeerk pool. And it involves our old pal Ronald McDonald. See, there's an entrance to the pool at the nearby McDonald's. All controllers have to do to get inside is to as for a Happy Meal with extra Happy, then go in through a secret entrance in the walk-in refrigerator. They morph fly and try to hitch a ride with a female controller. However, when they do so, they get hit by a powerful beam that almost destroys them. A biofilter that keeps out any non-yeerk creature. So that plan's a bust. Cassie has a plan instead. They could dig their way into the pools by morphing as moles. Marco also confirms that he can buy the oatmeal they'll need to get into the pools. But only one mole morph at a time to make for one straightforward hole, which they find by an old toolshed that's just directly above the pools. Rachel morphs mole first and after a bit of trouble getting used to it, she begins her dig, while having severe claustrophobia which doesn't help. She only manages to get about a foot deep. Same problem with the other Animorphs. They need to dig about 40 feet, but can't just dig straight down, so even with their combined efforts, they only barely got six feet done.

But the Animorphs stick with it, and eventually Rachel discovers that they've dug their way into a cave of some sort. The next day they dig into the cave, with Rachel falling into a pile of bat guano. Because this is K.A. Applegate and we need to talk about feces at some point. But they have found a bat cave, and can use the bats to morph, which can aid in them carrying the oatmeal. They morph bats and fly in the cave, where they find a crack in the wall they can fly through. They find the Yeerk pool so that helps their plan, which is now to put the oatmeal in the pools themselves. If the yeerks get screwed up there, the humans won't be affected. But as they discuss, they end up being zapped by Dracon Beams. Rachel falls into the Yeerk pool and manages to escape, demorph, morph ant, and make it into a room where she grabs a Dracon Beam, which she uses to zap a Hork-Bajir and a controller woman, who she steals the clothes of. She discovers that Ax has been caught and Jake and Tobias are with him, still in bat form. However, Marco can't find Cassie or Rachel, so Rachel is still alone for now.

Rachel then overhears a controller being caught with contraband. She claims it's just cereal, but it turns out to be the maple and ginger oatmeal. Turns out that there's a 200 pounds worth of the oatmeal that's stashed because other controllers have had the same idea. So at least now they don't have to actually buy and lug it into the pools. There's plenty of stash to go around. Rachel blasts a controller and runs off, only to find Cassie. They still need the other four, but just as this all goes down, guess who needs to show up before the book ends? Yup, Visser Three arrives. The two find Marco in gorilla morph and begin to morph attack morphs, namely Rachel in elephant form and Cassie in wolf. Marco grabs the Dracon Beam and the three take down the shack containing the oatmeal. They grab a barrel and throw it in the Yeerk pool. As Marco is about to blast them, Visser Three stops them, while saying that it doesn't matter as only 500 or so Yeerks would even be affected. He then tries to attack Rachel, managing to slash the elephant hard, but Rachel ends up overpowering him and knocking him into the pool. So now he should worry if the barrel is blasted. 

The rest of the Animorphs are rescued, but now they have to escape. And that includes Rachel who is bleeding bad in elephant form. The Hork-Bajir continue to come after them, but Rachel uses the Dracon Beam on the roof to collapse it in front of them. They all manage to make it out alive and use their bat forms to fly out of the cave. Later, Rachel learns that Edelman managed to escape, but since he's raving about seeing a grizzly bear, nobody would believe him anyway. And the book ends with Rachel being given a whole bunch of maple and ginger oatmeal from Marco since they won't need it at the moment.

This book starts a bit slow, but when it gets good, it's really good. Giving us perhaps the strongest action sequence we've gotten in quite some time. Granted, it's centered around oatmeal, but for a book about oatmeal, to get a big battle in the Yeerk Pools which involves Visser Three makes it perhaps one of the better uses of a plot device. I mean it's better than a book about chasing an alien toilet, that's for sure. As a Rachel book, it's fine. Not exactly the deepest dive for her as a character. It retains her braveness and willingness to be the first to fight while also pointing out how a lot of the things that have gone down have affected her in one way or another. That the kids are still suffering from the mental scars of missions gone wrong. And this in so many ways could have gone much, much worse than it did. But it also feels like a mission that failed in the end. They really never got a chance to do much of anything with the oatmeal and they almost died. I guess at the very least they got to piss Visser Three off again, which are points in its favor.

What I like about this book is that it does set up a good question. What are the limits? Is drugging a bunch of Yeerks even a good thing? Is it right to do? Or in many ways are the Animorphs stooping to the similar lows of the Yeerks themselves. It's definitely a better attempt at this idea than, say, Cassie's crisis over morphing dolphin. Here, it's leading Yeerks to their inevitable deaths and possibly affecting the human hosts. Is this right? But the book also makes it clear that in war, it's hard to find compromise, and there'll always be victims in any war. It also shows that it's hard to even find compromise when one side is focused on power. They don't want compromise, they want control. So you can see more of the point that the Animorphs ultimately agree to given that they're not in a position to compromise with the Yeerks. They need to turn the tides on this invasion before the idea of a compromise could even be considered. Case in point, having Visser Three cornered. And yeah, they could have just ended Visser Three then and there, but aside from being a continuing book series so the villain has to escape until next time, I think even they knew if they did it right then, that things for them would have been much worse. 

This book is ultimately a filler book though as, again, they really didn't succeed here. They embarrassed Visser Three, sure, but nothing came out of this, and to what I can tell, the oatmeal stuff doesn't matter as much going forward, so they really don't mess with this ace in the hole anymore. But I think of the filler books we've had, this one is a bit more interesting than the others. Mainly in how the plot flows, some of the unique morphs we get, a heavier focus on action and suspense. And while it just sort of ends with really no victory, it doesn't feel like a complete waste of time to read either. But it's still a book I feel leaves you wanting more. Wanting a stronger outcome overall. And I can understand why a lot of people would consider this one more of a waste of time. A book devoid in development. But rereading it for the first time in decades, I come out of it enjoying it a bit more than I thought it would. It's not perfect, and suffers from feeling like filler content. But I'd be lying if I said the book's attempt at philosophical reasoning for the Animorphs' actions and the big fight at the end weren't great enough to elevate this one to be a book I enjoyed. Given this one appears to have a bit more of a dislike ratio to it, I'll be the rare breed who says "It was alright". It's not the strongest filler book, but there's still stuff inside I think people will still enjoy. It's not the sturdiest, but sturdy enough. The Underground gets a B+. 

RELATABLE REFERENCES

Star Wars

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Planet Hollywood

Bruce Willis
Demi Moore
Lucy Lawless
Xena: Warrior Princess

Shaq

John Goodman 

Road Runner

Wile E. Coyote

USA Today

Naomi Campbell

Gilligan's Island

Kryptonite

The Civil War

Happy Meal

McDonald's

Target

Batcave

Gettysburg

The Battle of the Midway

Operation Desert Storm

The Battle of Bunker Hill

D-Day

Batmobile

Robin

Star Wars

DKNY

Rubbermaid

Xena